3 policemen die, 6 injured in attack in Thai south

Men attacked with assault rifles and grenades after bomb explodes under their vehicle

By Max Constant

BANGKOK

Three policemen have been killed and six injured in a brazen midday attack by Muslim insurgents in Thailand’s troubled south.

Police colonel Pakdi Preechachon, chief of the Chanae police station, told Anadolu Agency Tuesday that the men were attacked after a bomb exploded near their vehicle.

“A pick-up truck carrying nine policemen in Chanae district in Narathiwat province lost its direction when a remote-controlled bomb hidden on the road side exploded,” Preechachon said.

“The car hit a tree and an unknown number of assailants attacked the policemen with assault rifles and grenade launchers, killing three and injuring six.”

Despite a decrease in the number of violent incidents in 2015 compared to previous years, bombings and shootings continue to destabilize the three provinces of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani – as well as four districts of the Songkla province to the north – where around 6,500 people have been killed and over 11,000 injured since 2004.

The southern insurgency is rooted in a century-old ethno-cultural conflict between Malay Muslims living in the southern region and the Thai central state where Buddhism is considered the de-facto national religion.

Armed insurgent groups were formed in the 1960s after the then-military dictatorship tried to interfere in Islamic schools, but the insurgency faded in the 1990s.

In 2004, a rejuvenated armed movement – composed of numerous local cells of fighters loosely grouped around an organization called the National Revolutionary Front or BRN – emerged.

The confrontation is one of the deadliest low-intensity conflicts on the planet.